Windows Phone 8 power saving tips for enhancing battery life

It is annoying when our smartphone runs out of battery. The more we use the phone features, the more is the battery juice used. So it is necessary to maintain the battery life and make the most from the phone. It this post, I will suggest some ways to extend the battery life in Windows Phones.

Windows Phone 8 Power Saving Tips

Turn on Battery Saver

It is a native and built-in mode available in the Windows Phone platform. Battery Saver mode tries to consume minimum power (when kept on) by turning off some features running in the background and increases the battery life.

Power Saver mode stops updating the live tiles, closes those apps that are running in the background and stops automatic syncing of mail and calendar.

To turn on Battery Saver, Go to settings, tap Battery saver and then turn it on.

Battery Saver mode normally gets activated with the battery life falls below 20%, but it can be manually turned on anytime.

Turn off Background Tasks

Along with the apps in the multi-tasking panel, there are few that are running in the background which consume a lot of battery. Turning off any of these apps that you do not require will dramatically increase the battery life.

To manage the background tasks, Go to settings, swipe to the applications page, tap background tasks. You will see a list of apps running, select the one that you do not want and tap Block.

Tip: Apps like Angry Birds: Star Wars or Nokia Drive consume a lot of battery power so turn them off when, not in use.

Turn off Bluetooth, WiFi and NFC

Windows Phone 8 supports Bluetooth sharing of files so keeping the Bluetooth turned on for all the time will drain the battery. Also, when the Bluetooth turned on the phone constantly checks for available accessories that lead to unnecessary drain of battery.

To turn off Bluetooth, Go to settings, tap Bluetooth, and turn it to off.

Similarly, when the WiFi turned on it keeps on checking for the available networks and notifies you. So it recommended keeping the WiFi turned off when, not in use.

To turn off WiFi, Go to settings, tap Wi-Fi, and turn it to off. (You may also uncheck ‘Notify me when new networks are found’)

I’m not sure if NFC maintains the battery life when turned off, but from my personal experience it did work out.

To turn off NFC, Go to settings, tap Tap+send, and switch NFC Sharing to off.

Keep dark background theme

The only native customization available in Windows Phone is the Dark (Black) and Light (White) theme. Using either of them theme does affect the battery life especially if you have Super AMOLED display. So it is recommended to use the dark background theme for your phone.

To keep dark background theme, Go to settings, tap theme, and under the background select dark.

Keep low brightness

The automatic brightness level may sometimes keep the brightness high unnecessarily resulting in greater use of the battery. So it is recommended to turn off automatically adjust and select the brightness levels manually as per the ambiance.

Keep Cellular data connection turned off whenever, not in use

Using cellular data connection (HSDPA or LTE) uses a lot of battery. The battery level falls too often when the internet is in use. Almost all the Windows Phone 8 devices have balanced battery life for HSDPA, but LTE data uses maximum of the battery life. So it is recommended to keep the data connection of whenever not needed.

Manually synchronize e-mails

Windows Phone synchronizes the mail accounts after some time interval to check for new mails. The synchronization takes up some amount of battery juice every time and this results in a decrease in, battery life.

To prevent this, the email accounts should be manually synchronized to check for new mails or the time interval between the two synchronization should be increased.

Varad Choudhari is a tech enthusiast and gadget freak to the core. All things digital, that’s what he always think about. He enjoys blogging about Tablets, Mobile Phones and other gadgets - and is pretty impressed with the new Windows Phone platform.